Power Over Death
by Gamma Orionis
Summary: The idea of a force so powerful that it could destroy him instantly and completely is an idea that is far from comfortable for Tom Riddle. Written for Writing Challenge #72 on xoxLewrahxox's Bellatrix Lestrange forum.


Author's Notes: Written for D-eadLovers' Death Challenge on xoxLewrahxox's Bellatrix Lestrange: The Dark Lord's Most Faithful Forum.

_Y__our theme will be one's relationship with death. You may chose the character of your choice, and, in no less than 900 words, write a story about how said character feels about his own death, death in general, and even, if you want to, the death of a third party. You'll also have to explain why he/she feels this way._

)O(

Everyone looked the same when they were dead.

Tom Riddle had observed that first in his youth, when he saw corpses of soldiers from the war being borne to the hospital. He stood at his window in the orphanage, peering out through the grimy glass, and he squinted bodies below. All covered in sheets. All the same shape. Even those who had suffered injuries so severe that they should have altered their forms looked the same as the others, because of the way the sheets were folded and draped over the stretchers. People wanted every corpse to look the same.

The uniformity intrigued Tom. He sat at the window for a long time after the tragic little procession had gone by, pondering the force that could strip a person of all their individual worth, and turn him into a shell that was the same as anyone else's.

He would not have used the word _frightening_ to describe it, but Tom could not help but be intimidated by such a power. The idea of having everything important about him stripped away – his memories, his thoughts, his ambitions and his _powers_ – was one that disturbed him deeply. He could not bear the idea of so much of _him_ disappearing.

He felt no sorrow for the Muggles who died in the war, no matter how many corpses were brought by his windows – they had brought the war on themselves, after all, and deserved their punishments for it, and did they even have thoughts and ambitions as he did? – but when others felt sadness, Tom felt concern for himself and his future.

He could _not_ let any power be so great that it could take away everything about him in one swoop. He would not allow it to happen.

But he was not naïve; he knew that no one yet had learned to stop death. _Even Wizards die_ had been one of the first things he learned about Magic. No one could do it.

No one could do it _yet_.

But no one yet had been _him_.

Other Wizards in the past had not thought the way he did. The kind of Wizards who might consider immortality were men like Albus Dumbledore – men who really believed that there was an underlying order to the universe that they could not disturb too deeply. They did not wish to experiment and push the boundaries of modern magic. Their ideas of morality stopped them from achieving greatness. They believed in powers greater than magic (_love_, Albus Dumbledore spoke of _love_, as if that was something that really mattered – Tom knew better than to believe in the power of love).

Tom had never let anything else overpower him before. Why should death be the exception now?

If he only knew how to begin…

)O(

When Tom killed his father (his _filthy Muggle father_, the man who had abandoned him to the orphanage without a second thought, who deserved to die more than anyone else) and his grandparents (useless fools, couldn't they have seen what their son was?), he observed once more that they all looked the same in death.

While they were not uniformly aligned and covered in sheets the way the soldiers had been, but instead sprawled across the armchairs in their all-too-opulent parlour, they somehow looked even more identical than the soldiers had. Their faces were all frozen into the same perfect expressions of fear, the light was gone from their eyes, and they hung limply in place, no longer supporting their own weight.

Tom took a moment to sit and look at them.

He examined his father (who looked very much like him – but _no_, he was different, different in every way that there could be), and tried to guess from his face what sort of man he had been. Tom had always been skilled at reading people– he could see into them, see their petty little hopes and dreams – but he saw nothing in the older Tom Riddle's face. Nothing but fear, and even that was a mask, just a turned-down mouth and wide eyes, not a real emotion.

His grandparents wore identical masks of fear, and Tom was briefly inclined to line them up and admire the similarities between their faces. Were it not a terribly childish thing to do, he might have.

All three of them had been erased. The Earth had been cleansed of them, three worthless beings who had lived on it, and soon, memories of them would fade and disappear as well. And then they would be gone, completely gone.

The idea of _making people disappear _made Tom shiver with awe at his own power. This was more than a punishment to be given to someone had crossed him – this was something that Albus Dumbledore would consider a disturbance to the universe. And if it was, Tom had disturbed the universe, and he felt no regret. He had done the right thing.

Sitting there, looking at the bodies that he – _he!_ – had sapped of life made him feel safer and more powerful than he had since he had first become aware of death as a powerful inevitability.

Suddenly he, Tom, was able to control death in at least a small way.

If he could visit it upon others, he felt quite sure that it was only a matter of time before he could protect himself from it with equal ease.

)O(

_Fin_


End file.
